


Ice in the Sun

by buckyxyz



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-22
Updated: 2019-06-22
Packaged: 2020-05-16 10:59:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19316821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buckyxyz/pseuds/buckyxyz
Summary: She is trapped in a curse... within another curse.





	Ice in the Sun

**Author's Note:**

> My first attempt to writing a Bucky fic! <3<3

It’s the blow that jolts her back to reality.

The final fall.

The impact on the ground leaves her twisting in agony for seconds. When the pain subsides a new sensation blossoms in her stomach, then in her chest. She feels her heart melting. Literally melting.

Blue blood comes out from her nose, from her ears and from her mouth.

It’s happening all over again.

Her blue lips slowly turn to a pale shade of red. Smoke billows downward from her skin, like she’s dry ice brought out of freezer. She starts perspiring, cold water coating the surface of her skin. The coldness turns to warmth as a twisting feeling forms in her gut.

She’s melting.

“Lizzie!” It’s Bucky. The soldier boy with a metal arm. He bends on both knees next to her, his arms gently lifting the upper part of her body from the ground. “You okay?” His voice is raspy, his breath ragged.

She studies his face, the scratches on his cheeks, the dried blood on his temple. His blood is red, compared to hers that is blue. She’s reminded again of the huge differences between them. He is mortal. She is not. He is human. She is ice turned to being.

His eyes bore into hers, desperate for an answer. His eyes, her favorite color in the world, blueish silver, like clear ice. She didn't want to stop staring at them.

She lets out a pained laugh, her guts twisting at the movement. “I’m dying,” she says, tone somewhere in between disbelief and acceptance. Or both.

A distant explosion shakes the earth. Falcon drops to the ground, his left wing broken and smoking, sparks coming out of it. “Buck! Lizzie! You guys okay?” He walks towards the two, his hand covering the bleeding wound on his left arm.

It’s happening all over again.

“No.” He says, both in answer to Lizzie’s statement and Sam’s question. “She’s not okay.” Panic builds in his chest quickly.

There’s no more strength left in her. She couldn’t feel her body, couldn’t feel her power. Her right arm falls and swings to her side, her left on his stomach.

A storm is brewing in her insides. She hears a crack, but it’s not the ground. She knows too well where it’s coming from.

It’s happening all over again.

“Take her to the infirmary. Loki and Hulk are there. I’ll cover.”

“How about you?”

“I’ll be fine.” Sam smiles to Bucky. “Save her.”

Bucky only nods.

“Hold on to him, Liz!” Sam calls just as Bucky starts to a sprint. “You’re gonna be okay!”

“I’m dying,” she repeats, this time more certain.

“No,” Bucky rasps, his eyes locked to the distant building that is their headquarters. He wills his feet to go faster and faster, his surroundings a blur in his vision. “I’ll save you.”

She tries to smile.

She hears another crack.

“Leave me, Bucky.”

It’s happening all over again.

She’s seen this before. Countless time. Everything. Yet she failed to stop it from happening. Again.

“No. I will save you,” he says, looking down at her briefly, his eyes determined. “I will save you,” he convinces himself more than her.

She brings her right hand to his face, tries to wipe the dried blood of his cheek. She forces herself to stay awake, but there’s just too much warmth in her, too much warmth from him. She isn’t used to this. It’s terrifying and comforting at the same time.

“Please,” she breathes, wishing he’d spare even just a glance at her. “James,” she whispers, a faint smile on her lips. She somehow feels this would be the last time she would hear the sound of his name on her lips, and it frightened her. She didn’t want to go. She wanted to be by his side forever. Even if it meant losing her power. She brushes her thumb on his cheek very softly as weakness slowly eats at her. She feels his rough skin against hers…until cold darkness finally consumes her.

 

***

 

War is happening, but Bucky has his own war to fight.

He stands by the operation table, staring down at Lizzie’s unconscious figure. Her perspiring never stops. There is color in her face, but Bucky doesn’t understand why she’s not moving.

Loki comes in a moment after, his face blanketed with fear and worry.

“It’s the curse. It’s wearing off,” he announces.

Bucky looks up, confused. His hand tightens around Lizzie’s. She is warm, to his surprise, warmer than she used to be. Warmer than she’s supposed to be.

“But it’s not doing her any good. If only, it’s making it worse for her.”

“What curse? What do you mean?”

“She is the Ice Queen,” Loki states, as if everybody else knows and only Bucky doesn’t. He looks down at Lizzie as if she’s the most fragile thing in this world: an iceberg in the middle of the ocean, breaking and slowly sinking. “She is made of ice. Her heart, her very core, is made of ice. And it’s melting. It’s her curse. You should know that of all people.”

“She never told me. Even if I asked her many times.” He swallows, suddenly feeling jealous of the closeness between Loki and Lizzie. They had that kind of understanding between each other that he somehow thinks isn’t there between them. Until now Bucky still doesn’t know a lot of things about her, only that she came from a different world called Skatis and that she is a queen there. And she has a heart made of ice. That it's just the way it has been ever since.

“She tends to be secretive sometimes,” Loki remarks.

“How do we save her?” Bucky asks, looking determined more than ever.

Loki is quiet for a moment. When he finally answers, his voice falters. “There’s no saving her. Not anymore.”

“How do we save her!” Bucky yells, more like a statement than a question. He wouldn’t take no for an answer.

Hell, Loki wouldn’t take that for answer as well, even if he isn’t in the Winter Soldier’s shoes. Bucky, of all the people, should know that. After all, he’s once betrothed to her; the God of Mischief and the Ice Queen, an arrangement made for the better future of Asgard. They didn’t love each other, or so as he always denied, but Loki knows that deep down there’s a teeny bit of affection he developed as he spent time with her. He learned that this woman, even if she has an ice for a heart, isn’t that hard to like at all. And she clearly enjoyed his attention, if that is something. Soon after, he realized he has come to like her. And that affection continuously grows even if they are no longer tied to their obligations. Even if his Ice Queen has developed certain feelings towards this broken soldier standing before him.

But that doesn’t matter, does it? What matters is that everything’s fine back then. Everything was fine until the soldier came and shook her core.

That’s when she started crumbling inside.

Loki remains unfazed as he looks up at Bucky, his forehead creased. “There is no saving her now,” he seethes. _‘And it’s all your fault,’_ he wants to add.

 

***

 

Bucky watches helplessly as Lizzie’s body arches up, her mouth open in a soundless scream. He could hear her voice in her ears, the pain in it. She could hear her screaming. She could hear her pleading. Her eyes glow a faint blue, her pupils contracted. They’ve tied her wrists around the locks embedded at each side of the table the moment she started having seizures. Bucky swallows down the guilt and forces himself to watch as she trashes on the table, wishing he could do anything to stop the pain. To stop the suffering.

 

***

 

It’s happening all over again.

She’s been through this. The pain. The trial.

“Mother.”

“Clydel.” Her voice is soothing albeit the coldness emanating from her. She’s floating above the ground, the flaps of her blue robe billowing underneath her even if there is no wind blowing.

She hated that name. It is her and at the same time, it isn’t.

“How many times do I have to go through this?” She asks, purely out of curiosity. She couldn’t count anymore how many times she’s done this. All she knows is that every time she did this, she fails to choose the right answer. And every time she picks the answer and is brought back to the world, she finds no recollection of the event. She never finds out whatever she chose.

“I don’t have answers, my child. I only bring you your trial.” Her voice echoes in the vast space surrounding them.

Lizzie doesn’t look around. She has been here too many times to know it’s only in her head. There isn’t a single living thing around. Just dead trees and bushes turned to ice. There is smoke in the ground, crawling only on the surface, against the skin of her ankles. Her feet are cold, but it’s the kind of cold she was brought to in this world. It’s the kind of cold she grew to live with.

“Fine then. Let’s get this over and done with.”

Her mother only inclines her head before slowly descending to the ground. Her robe continuously moves into a slow wave around her, its edges dancing in a song only she doesn’t seem to hear.

Her eyes glow into a faint blue, her pupils contracted. She raises her right arm at chest level, her palm towards Lizzie. “Clydel, Daughter of Skatis, Queen of the Ice Realm,” she announces, her voice clear, the echoes now gone, “Your curse is lifted. Now you must choose. Do you wish to be mortal or do you seek still for greater power?”

Lizzie thinks this is unfair. Of all people, her mother should be the one guiding her through this, not forcing her to decide for her future like she doesn’t have any other choice but to choose. And it frustrates her how she always ends up choosing the wrong answer. How is it even possible for an answer to be wrong? Why does someone or something have to suffer for the choice she makes?

Her mom repeats, “My child, would you choose mortality over your kingdom?”

Lizzie swallows as she looks up.

Wow, she could have asked it in a more considerate way.

Her mom’s face remains stoic. Maybe she knows what Lizzie would choose. Maybe she also knows Lizzie would fail again.

She didn’t even ask for this. Not an inch of her wanted to be a queen. She never wished to be a powerful queen and bear on her shoulders the troubles of leading a kingdom

Mortality would mean choosing the human world and forgetting Skatis; neglecting her obligations as its queen. Mortality means being powerless…being unable to control ice anymore.

She furrows her eyebrows. She’s missing another reason, but she couldn’t put a finger on it.

The smoke at her feet becomes restless, moving in circles around her ankles up to her knees. She turns it to ice, hardening around her heels, forming into a pair of boots. This is power. This is what she gets if she chooses Skatis. If she chooses to be the queen, she's made to be.

It’s her destiny.

“Skatis,” she declares, her voice faltering. She clears her throat, making sure she sounds certain this time. “I will always choose Skatis.” Even if deep inside her something screamed the opposite.

The last thing she sees is her mom smiling sadly before she’s jolted back to the real world.

 

***

 

The trashing finally stops. Bucky stands up to find her eyes closing and her body slowly relaxing on the table.

“Lizzie,” he calls.

Loki stands up, removing his hands from his face.

Her eyes snapped open, bluer than blue. Her skin, colder than ever.

  
She is the Daughter of Skatis, the Ice Queen.

 

  
The cycle continues.

  
She falls in love.

 

She hears cracks and she breaks.

 

  
She chooses.

 

 

She fails.

 

  
She will always choose the wrong answer.

 

  
It’s her curse.


End file.
